Our Family Adventure: The baklava was so tasty!

Gaziantep:

This was a quick weekend trip (I had no class on Fridays, and class on Monday did not start until 1900, which made for decent long weekends), in which we met Sarah Thomas to tour this city in the Southeast together. Since Gaziantep province lies on the Syrian border, we had to get permission to travel there from the RSO in Ankara, which was not an issue. Gaziantep is famous as the culinary center of Turkey, and especially known for its Antep Fıstığı, pistachios, which are used to fill its baklava, which is unmatched anywhere else. Needless to say, we ate well over the weekend, trying out at least five baklava salons, and visiting the Culinary Museum. In a city known for its food, the premier restaurant is İmam Çağdaş, where we ate twice because the traditional Turkish dishes there were so good. The other major attraction of Gaziantep was the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, which was just completed in 2010 and houses the supposedly largest collection of intact Roman era mosaics in the world. The mosaics were excavated from the city of Zeugma before it was flooded by the new Birecik Dam on the Fırat (Euphrates) River, and the museum is one of the most modern and well-organized we have seen in all of Turkey. It was a great trip, and we may visit Gaziantep again, especially to see Rum Kale, an impressive Roman-era castle outside the city, and to re-sample the baklava.

Culinary museum...pots & pans!

Paul enjoyed being pushed around all weekend. Note the Kale in the background, it was closed this visit unfortunately.

We've seen a fair number of dioramas in museums here. This one was in the Şahinbey Savaş Müzesi commemorating the Turkish war for independence.

One of our many delicious baklava samplings.

The mosaic museum was really amazing. I'm sure these few photos will not do it enough justice, but use your imagination. It's crazy to think all this might have been lost to the waters of the dam, and makes you wonder what else is down there.